South Africa’s Aspen pharmaceutical, headquartered in Durban, has signed a deal to package and sell Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 vaccine in Africa. Aspen is focused on improving the health of patients across the world through its high quality and affordable medicines.
With a presence of more than two decades in the pharmaceutical sector, Aspen has improved the health of patients in more than 150 countries. If fully confirmed, the deal would make Aspen the first African company to have a right to distribute and price the COVID-19 vaccine, which it would market under its own brand name of Aspenovax. Stephen Saad, Chief Executive of Aspen, said he is “hoping to get this (deal) out as soon as possible in 2022.”
Africa is the least vaccinated part of the world and as the world has seen the upsurge of a new variant, the success of the Aspen deal will be a huge game changer for the continent. The agreement will run until the end of 2026 and includes the right to manufacture additional versions based on booster shots or new Covid-19 variants.
Aspen packages close to 300 million doses a year of J&J’s COVID-19 vaccine in South Africa. This affirms South Africa’s capabilities to be of a global standard especially following the discovery and the detection of the new variant now known as Omicron.
As shared by the government, our best defense against COVID-19 remains choosing vaccination.
- Vaccination is our best defense against new COVID-19 and all its variants. The more we vaccinate the safer we will be.
- Global experience has shown that vaccinated people are 99 per cent guaranteed to survive COVID-19.
- Evidence has also shown that those who do NOT vaccinate are ten times more likely to die if they contract the virus.
- By vaccinating, we not only reduce the risk of serious illness, hospitalisation and death, but also reduce the risk of future deadly variants.
Vaccines help your immune system fight infections faster and more effectively.
